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captaincocanutty's review against another edition
4.0
Reads a bit like a textbook when talking about the bombing side of the war, but when it got into the bombed side of the war there was a lot more analysis that made the book more interesting. Overall it was a bit dry but the end made up for it when it all came together.
classicalice123's review against another edition
4.0
This is a really fascinating and accessible book on all levels of bombing in Europe during ww2, including the lead up, the events, and finishing with the overarching shadow this period had on subsequent modern history. Very informative and clearly well researched
tanyarobinson's review against another edition
3.0
This scholarly work is good solid history filled with facts, statistics, and scattered human perspectives, but it is not particularly readable. Time and again I found myself plowing through long technical paragraphs with so many details that my head blurred before I finished the page. The best section by far (and really the only part of the book that I would recommend reading unless you're really interested in war materiel) was the middle section on the bombed in Germany's cities. The biggest contribution this work made to my knowledge of World War II is an understanding of what the Allied bombing campaigns hoped to achieve and the actual results. It made me think a lot about current U.S. missile strikes and their objectives, and wonder how well we have learned from our history.
katequeenofsprouts's review against another edition
3.0
Really this was a three and a half. I enjoyed learning about the Allied air war, and it gave me some new perspective of what it meant to be "liberators" in Europe.
amjacobson2000's review against another edition
4.0
I actually liked the chapters about the German civil defense preparations leading up to the war...thought it was a little out of sequence, since this is discussed after the bombing chapters...and learned some new info about how the Italians didn't do the same and how quickly their war ended. And to repeat what others have already mentioned, the material is dry; well researched, but most certainly dry...
katequeenofsprouts's review against another edition
3.0
Really this was a three and a half. I enjoyed learning about the Allied air war, and it gave me some new perspective of what it meant to be "liberators" in Europe.
johnmarlowe's review against another edition
3.0
This novel’s style was aggravating, with full pages or more of a single paragraph. I wouldn’t describe this style as enjoyable or easily readable at all. I was glad that the real length of the novel was 200 pages less than the 636 pages that were in the e-book. The rest was footnotes.
The Americans and the British were obsessed with bombers in WWII. On the American side, that was evident in just one instance, which was the production of the B-24 Liberator (a somewhat ironic term after reading this book) by Ford Motor Company at the Willow Run airplane assembly plant. Eventually, a “bomber an hour” was produced there. Britain was just as obsessed, although their obsession was for the U.S. to produce as many bombers as we could in order to help them.
This book was by and large sickening to me, because of the detailed explanations of everything that has to do with bombing and being bombed during war. The whole point of bombing a country is to destroy property and kill or maim the civilian population so that they are either demoralized or unable to work in the war effort. The documentation of thousands of people killed as a result of inaccurate bombing was horrifying. These sentences in the book were disturbing: “The temptation to reach for airpower when other means of exerting direct violent pressure were absent proved hard to resist. Bombing had the virtues of being flexible, costing less than other military options, and enjoying a high public visibility, rather like the gunboat in nineteenth-century diplomacy”
The Americans and the British were obsessed with bombers in WWII. On the American side, that was evident in just one instance, which was the production of the B-24 Liberator (a somewhat ironic term after reading this book) by Ford Motor Company at the Willow Run airplane assembly plant. Eventually, a “bomber an hour” was produced there. Britain was just as obsessed, although their obsession was for the U.S. to produce as many bombers as we could in order to help them.
This book was by and large sickening to me, because of the detailed explanations of everything that has to do with bombing and being bombed during war. The whole point of bombing a country is to destroy property and kill or maim the civilian population so that they are either demoralized or unable to work in the war effort. The documentation of thousands of people killed as a result of inaccurate bombing was horrifying. These sentences in the book were disturbing: “The temptation to reach for airpower when other means of exerting direct violent pressure were absent proved hard to resist. Bombing had the virtues of being flexible, costing less than other military options, and enjoying a high public visibility, rather like the gunboat in nineteenth-century diplomacy”
quintusmarcus's review against another edition
4.0
Dense, extremely detailed and deeply researched analysis of the development of bombing strategy in Europe in WWII. Heavy emphasis on the evolving strategic goals, and on the changing ethical justifications considered by political leaders. Not an easy read, but worth the effort, for the light it shines on current military strategy.
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